Digital Love
by ChibiKanakoNyu
Summary: Who said friendships in our digital world don't exist? A certain group of friends would have a word with them... - for opscifiandfantasy


**Digital Love**

 **Rating** : PG-13

 **Pairing** : none, genfic

 **Words** : 9k+

 **Warning** **s** : some angst, blood

* * *

Among creaks of wood, Zoro awoke to a wobbly world. Right. Hammocks. Hammocks worked like that. Well, if he completed his daily training quick enough, he still might take a short nap before breakfast. Yeah, better make it quick, or else he would only link the bottom of a pan for the most important meal of the day.

Yawning, Zoro rolled out of his hammock, and walking past a few loose, sleepy limbs, he climbed up on deck. The sky was a clammy gray, with no sun in sight. And yet, from somewhere above, there was a stark, blinking light, irritating Zoro more and more the less groggy he felt. Maybe if he just... No, rubbing his eye to make it go away just made it ten times more annoying. And that damn thing even seemed to have come closer somehow, and...

There was a door closing. Oh, right. Must have been the kitchen.

"Oh look who woke up with a bright idea once in a millenia!"

The light was one thing, but there was nothing more irritating than that prissy voice. Well, maybe the brightness was an added bonus. Both seemed to come from the same source, in any case.

"Or are you trying to photosynthesize? Are you that hungry? Poor little mosshead."

"The hell are you on about?" Zoro looked up at the ever-cocky cook standing at the railing in front of the kitchen, He had to shield his teary eye of the blinking light coming from above the stupid blond's head. Sanji just might have finally made it to be a saint. Saint Piss-Me-Off.

"Oh, waaait, I've got it now! Your stench is so bad that it caught fire!"

"What?!" Hel if Zoro could make sense of the guy, even without that bright thing to annoy him!

"The light above your head, you mangy-ass green gorilla!" Sanji sighed exasperatedly, wincing as Zoro approached him on at the rails. "What IS that shit, anyway?"

"The hell are you saying? It's YOU that's glowing like some sort of dorky light bulb!"

"Light bulb. Really," Sanji scoffed. "Is that all you can do?"

"Just shut up and turn that... thing off! I'm going blind here!"

Instinctively, Zoro swished out his arm to try and perhaps sweep the blinking light down from on top of Sanji's head.

"What the shit are you-"

All of a sudden, the whole deck erupted in light, with them at the centre. All they could do was to hunker down onto the planks, screaming as the brightness filtered through their eyelids... Until the glow finally softened somewhat.

"What was-?!" Sanji all but hissed.

"Whoa…?!"

Zoro squinted and carefully rose to his feet. Between them remained the light, but less harsh in brightness. It had morphed into some sort of glowing bulletin board, with one word in squiggly letters on it: 'Party?'

"Y and N... What is Y and N?"

"Y as in Yes?"

"Yes? Why would-"

Just as they both said the word, there was an unusual twitch in Zoro's arm. First a small one, testing waters. But the next one felt way bigger, and his arm swung awkwardly towards the brightly lit Y in front of their noses.

"What- Hey-!" Sanji apparently had the same kind of cramp in his arm, for he started flailing, too, in the middle of his confused protests.

The sign erupted in light again at that. Ow, that damn little...! But for a second, Zoro thought it read, 'Successfully joined party!'

"What the ever gracious fuck is a party...?" the cook muttered.

Before Zoro could even begin to ponder that topic, there was a shout coming from the opposite deck. It sounded like...

"Hey! You two! Stop dawdling there and help out!" Nami was standing at the steering wheel, agitated as usual. "I can't fight _and_ steer!"

"Who's there?" Zoro sharpened his focus. Now that Nami mentioned it, Zoro really did sense something coming. Something big. Sanji stepped onto the railing beside him; the idiot felt it, too.

With Nami's retreating steps towards the railing appeared a hand, then a head, looming over the ship's side-rails. And soon joined another, and another one, and a swarm of sopping wet, growling creatures crawled up on the hull to bare their rotten teeth at them. They looked like pirates, zombies and sea monsters blended into one. Luffy would have liked that...

"Get away!" Nami cried out.

Panicked, she promptly produced a strange looking staff from thin air. The move was accompanied by a merry, heroic tune, and above her head, a text erupted with blue, saying 'Nami uses skill Starting Spell!'

And it got even weirder. Nami struck a pose that should have by all intents and purposes broken her spine! Then, she proceeded to disassemble her staff for some reason. With how she spun, folded and joined parts of it back together, it could as well have been a puzzle game. What kind of 'spell' she cast with that thing, though... Now that had Zoro rendered pretty amazed.

"Thunderbolt Tempo!" Nami raised her staff and yelled, and from the clouds gathering above her, several licks of lightning struck the deck and the enemies crawling onto it. Since those fiends were all wet, most of them got fried instantly.

"That's my Nami-swaaan! So superb, so wonderful!" Sanji gurgled from beside Zoro.

"Heh," Zoro chuckled, bemused. Now he felt like kicking ass. "Oi, Nami! Leave us some, too, yeah?"

And with that Zoro, aimed to jump off onto the lower deck and engage in the battle. There was just one tiny problem. He couldn't move an inch! No matter how hard he strained the muscles in his arms and legs, even the ones in his face, no part of him would yield. What the hell...

"Nami-san, wait for me!"

Sanji, though, took a big leap over the raling, that rotten bastard. There was some kind of arrow floating over his head, bright yellow. Was it 'his turn' or something…?

"Whoa! Oi oi oi, come on, not over there!"

However, he seemed to be having difficulties positioning his legs. He got stuck in the railing half a hundred times, before he caved and just ran down the stairs instead. Served him right. And as soon as he landed, he began bouncing around in some kind of awkward and hilarious little flailing dance, but eventually, he launched a roundhouse kick at the foes at hand. Zoro could only stand there and blink. For multiple reasons.

After the cook knocked out about five of those ugly things, trumpets sang loudly and presented a sign in those blinding letters again. Damn, Zoro could barely make out what it said. 'Experience' is the only thing he could make out, before the whole thing vanished, and a kind of cobweb shaped thing started to float in the sky instead. One of its knots lit up red, right in front of his face. Ouch. But then, he saw his name come up. To be precise it said, 'Zoro learned the skill Berserk!'

Berserk? That wasn't really among Zoro's techniques, was it? But before he could even make a guess at what that was about, he got the strong feeling that the mentioned 'skill' was being, well... activated.

His arms seemed to move on their own, whipping out all three of his swords. A real waste for all that small fry, in all honesty... And after he crossed Kitetsu and Shuusui, his arms swished the blades to this sides with a slash, and his aura erupted in red. Okay, that was kinda cool.

What was more, he could finally move around as he pleased! Without the help of that annoying little arrow, without being controlled by anyone. The damn rails posed difficulty for him too, though, but compared to Sanji, on the hundredth try, he actually managed to jump over them.

"How can you move, you shitty asshole?!" Sanji yelled after him as he lunged forward to land his first sword slashes. His baffled duckface was priceless.

Soon, ten or twenty more of those beasts hit the deck, or plunged back into the water. At some point, there was the yellowish light again, up high. Zoro was almost wondering where it had gone to for such a long time of, say, ten seconds?

This time, the arrow was hovering over Nami's head again. It looked like another spell was in the making - Nami was cooking up a nice storm. And how her arm was woven into the steering wheel, it looked to be a big one...!

"Look out!"

Cold chill swept over them all. Red little triangles appeared all over the deck, but Zoro realized too late he was supposed to grab a hold of something. With tree monsters weighing him down, the cold water awaited him.

The plunge was heavy, icy. In front of Zoro's sight, a horizontal red bar kept shrinking as the tightness in his chest rose. But he couldn't wiggle free from all the dead things around him... He couldn't move anymore...!

Then, the familiar yellow gleam appeared above the water surface. The next thing Zoro saw was Sanji's puffed-up cheeks, diving in deeper after him. Grabbing him harshly by the arm, Sanji all but kicked them out of the water and back onto the ship.

The light-script didn't linger long. 'Party maneuver', was all Zoro could read in the flashy letters before they vanished. All that remained were a few grunting creatures, Sanji trying to get his banana-peel hair out of his face, and Nami fiddling with her staff. No, really, she danced around and pretendet that it was a violin. Just before she stopped abruptly and demanded no one in particular to cut the crap... Zoro pinched his own cheek. Nope, all the crazy was still going down.

"You're fucking welcome, shithead," Sanji got his attention, sneering at him.

"Shut up."

"Hey! You two can flirt later!" They heard Nami call again. What, fli- "Help me!"

Visibly in a pinch, Nami was forced to be bent back over the railing. In a hilarious, butt-lifting pose, again. The hell... One of the monsters was in her face, and from the sound and spark effect, her staff threatened to break into two.

"Don't worry, Nami-swaaan, I'll save you!" Sanji called heroically, and immediately rushed over to help.

However, just as he jumped up to kick the beast in the face, a yellow script that read 'Critical parry!' flared up above Nami's head, and with sounds of effort, she managed to push the enemy back with a gust of wind storming out from the end of her pipe. That resulted in the ugly thing crashing against Sanji in mid-air, though. Luckily, only the foe hit the water. Sanji propelled the thing off him, then landed on deck on his feet.

A fuming Nami's punch still struck both him and Zoro down regardless.

"You two are unbelievable!" she announced. Bright letters above her head also added, 'Team Morale -2'.

Thankfully enough, that seemed to be the last of the monsters that had ambushed them. Zombie pirates crawling out from the sea, though. Luffy would have had a blast.

Luffy...

A flash of red caught Zoro' eye, up above. Of course, another illuminated text that didn't make any sense. Aside from blinding them all, maybe... But wait. That one was sorta... strange. For one, Zoro saw it written backwards, as if he was standing behind a window. But the most unsettling thing about it was what it read: 'Are you sure you want to quit?'

"Oh no...!" Nami gasped beside him. "Quick," she tugged on Zoro's sleeve, "we need to hurry! Come on!"

Without wasting a second, she jumped off the helm deck and ripped the trap door open. The one leading to the soldier docks. Sanji was quicker to be at her heels, leaping in right after. Going in last, Zoro had a feeling he had better closed the door after himself.

Inside, there was nothing but pitch black. Zoro expected a blindingly bright sign to pop up from nowhere again, but it never flashed up anywhere. It was making him kinda uneasy...

"Hey! Over here!"

Nami waved to them from a few steps off. The light of a lantern was casting eerie shadows onto her face. Where did she get that? It looked very different than everything else Zoro had seen on deck - as if it was a mismatched puzzle piece in her hand, unfitting...

"Come on, Marimo, don't fall asleep now," Sanji slapped the back of his head before he ran after Nami. Why that stupid...!

Zoro followed suit. Definitely not because he was provoked into it, no. Nami looked pretty desperate to get to wherever she was headed, and Zoro had no doubt that they should hurry it up.

Judging from the slight creak and the wooden thing - door frame - he bumped his elbow against in the dark, they passed through some kind of an entrance. Before he reached back to shut that one behind him as well, Zoro took note of the number painted on it. With Franky's favourite turquoise - the number seven. Wait, that wasn't right. Wasn't the Sunny only supposed to have docking up to channel six...?

"Nami-san, where are we going?" Sanji voiced his doubts first, though.

"We're almost there," she reassured.

And after she had barely said as much, she stopped. They stood in the middle of a place so dark that ot felt like melting into nothing. There, she waved the strange, cardboard-cut looking lantern in her hand around, looking the place over, then turned to them.

"Okay, we don't have much time. Reach into your pockets."

Zoro and Sanji glanced over at each other, but did as they were bid without much hesitation. Zoro was surprised to find a small object attached to a string of wire inside his coat. In the faint light, he could only make out a round, sleek, palm-fitting device. With a bump on top of it...

"What..." Zoro raised his brows. He had never seen anything like that before, he was sure. But still he had the strong notion that it was a kind of switch... How...?

"Good. On my count of three, you two have to push that button, at the same time. Please try not to mess it up this time, hmm?"

"This time...?" Sanji blinked. "What do you-"

"Pssst, here it goes!"

Nami took on a wide stance, as if she had anticipated the sudden tremor that hit the space they were standing in. Wherever that was.

"One..."

The cook looked over at Zoro again nervously. He snorted in that ridiculous way he always released smoke with, then nodded. Zoro got the message. Absolute focus was key. He didn't dare risk the consequences, after hearing Nami's grave words...

"Two...!"

Zoro reciprocated the nod, the switch raised up.

"Three!"

The buttons gave an unified click at the signal. And what happened next was the strangest thing Zoro had ever seen. But also very, very familiar, but...

Oh. That's right. Just before, all of this...!

"Yes!" Nami cried out in triumph, just as a carpet of green and blue numbers started rising around them, enveloping them in a see-through cube. "Thank goodness, we made it..." She let out a big breath.

"Nami-san... What just happened? Didn't we already...?"

"Of course we have, but you two just had- Oh, yeah, you guys still keep forgetting! So annoying..." Nami sighed, exasperatedly this time. "I told you not to get your head into the game too much! We've wasted too much time in here already! I told you the storyline messes with your heads and you forget who you are!"

"Who we are...?"

Zoro inadvertently raised his hands in his confused state, only to see the same zeros and ones running all over his own frame as the ones surrounding them. He could move freely, turning his palm upward, then back down, unlike in the game just now- Game. The game. Dammit, not again! He just had to get stuck in the worst game possible, again!

As in, the best game there was. The one he and Luffy had played with at least a thousand times...

Who wouldn't get trapped in their favourite game?

"Ah! Now I remember!" Sanji stomped his foot against nothing in particular - they were standing in the middle of empty cyberspace, after all -, then aimed a kick towards Zoro's head. He dodged it. Of course. "You just ran off on your own and got your sorry ass lost again! I barely found you, and you dragged Nami-san into that clusterfuck of shitty sea mummies! What did you think you were doing, you unlawfully fucked son of a marimo bastard?!"

"You _both_ ran off and got us into that mess, so shut up!" Nami corrected him.

"N-nami-san... Forgive me..." And that was all it took to get the bastard to zip it. Oh, if it only was always that easy...

"And stop fighting in here! You'll rupture the exception code Franky built for us and get us scattered into the binary cloud, and _then_ what will we do?! Use your heads!"

"Yeah. Calm the hell down, shit-cook."

"You have no shitty right to say that to me, you stinkin-!"

"STOP IT!" Nami broke them off again. "Jeez, why am I the one who gets stuck with you guys all the time... Look, we need to hurry up. Franky's battery sensor still shows twenty percent, but what if we won't find anyone for days again? And we don't even know what 'days' in here mean out there..." She rubbed her temples. "Anyway, we need to hurry up. The anti-off switches are almost out of power... If we're caught in here one more time after this…!"

"Yeah, we got it," Zoro nodded. "Let's find the others."

"Zoro, stay near the cube this time, do you hear me?"

"Yeah-yeah. Just keep up."

Nobody was especially happy when Zoro had been the one who got the scouting chip. Scouting involved going ahead to track recently used code strings outside the cube. Sure, Franky equipped him with a special rule to avoid being meshed into the base code, but it still required extreme focus and durability to move around outside of the protective cube. And clearly that was his job to bear.

Heeding Nami's words, he concentrated on the chip that was embedded in his spine, then stepped out into the darkness. Then it was to start his hunt for stray active strings. The blue flash behind Zoro let him know that Sanji began moving the cube behind them.

The cook was responsible for transporting them. Him being the quickest, Franky had made it so that Sanji could merge partly with the exception code to change its place among the coding rows... or something.

Thankfully, Franky didn't expect them to understand half of what he was doing with the codes. He had even been SUPER enough to create a visual for them that was easy to follow. Like the switches and buttons with which Nami could navigate their arrays, exceptions and search strings more effectively.

Or like in Zoro's case. All the active code strings appeared as symbolic little strands of yarn if he got close enough to them. After that, all they had to do was follow them. Okay, they probably needed to determine if the string was worth following first, but Zoro knew fully well they were running out of time. Franky was a damn genius, but he couldn't sustain the disturbance they were causing for much longer. They had been inside for who knows how long already. They needed to hurry…

Zoro sped up a little, dashing through the void. Sanji was deemed the fastest instead of him - he could damn well keep up. Somewhere in the vast black, Zoro spotted a speck of colour, coliling here and there. Sparkling up, it took on a strong yellow hue when he approached. He dearly hoped it led to their nakama. All of them. That would have been too good to be true.

"It looks to be in use," he heard Nami from inside the cube. "And the sensors show it's stable enough. Zoro, let's go check it out."

"Got it. Come on, stupid cook, this way."

"Shut your shitty mouth, you green mutant hedge. I'm coming."

Zoro traced the string a bit longer, searching. Examining. It didn't take him long to find the break in it, thankfully. And when he entered his security key, the empty space around them began to warp and build a whole new universe to surround them.

Well, in this case, the game didn't seem that eventful as the last one. It consisted mostly of a huge screen displaying dancing figures, arrows and flashing numbers, and a small dance floor, filled with disco lights and blaring, pumping dance music. Zoro could have done without the tacky dance outfits the game program had written them to wear. Well, alright, the black tank top was still okay, but what on earth was he wearing fluffy green plush pants and platoons for? Sanji got it worse, with those glittery pink shorts and boots, though. Nami was put in a barely-there bikini. Nobody was surprised. Well, at least his oufit would surely put Zoro's mind off from getting into that game too much.

It was still less baffling to see Usopp twerking really low to a popular R&B song than seeing Brook trying to do the same beside him. Seeing as Brook had about as much ass as a trilby hat. Or any object that wasn't remotely curvy. Hey, it wasn't Zoro's job to be witty, alright?

"Usopp!" Nami tried to scream through the music. "Usopp, can you hear me?!"

"Oi, Usopp!" Sanji called out, too.

Usopp only seemed to notice her waving arms when the directions on the screen bid him to turn around and twist his hips in a figure eight while doing jazz hands. He tried to wave, but that resulted in him getting a minus score on screen. With a panicked expression, he turned back to the screen to line up his moves.

"Thank goodness you guys are here! Brook completely lost it! And I can't feel my legs anymore!" he called to them as best as he could, panting.

"How do we get out of here?" Zoro tried to approach them, but needed to back off when there was a short breakdance intermission. Usopp did a pretty good job with it. Screaming.

"I found the way out," Usopp breathed after standing again, "but I can't aim at it unless Brook gets the game to lag. And he doesn't look like he wants this to be over, ever!"

Next to Usopp, Brook was humming along to the song. He was moving in unison with the directions on screen, as if it was him instead who supplied them. Zoro always thought their tall musician friend preferred the karaoke game. Apparently, he had been mistaken.

"Zoro!" Nami called from behind them. She had her hands clasped onto her ears. The exception script protected them from the binary void, but in-game, all protection was shut off. The game was starting to get to her. "Zoro, get the booster pack! Quickly!"

"I'll get it, Nami-sa-"

Oh no he didn't. They didn't have time for swimming in pixelated blood.

Before Sanji could reach her, Zoro was already beside Nami. Quickly, he fished the mentioned pack from out of her waist pack - or rather from the space where he remembered her waist bag being. The game script modified their appearances, yes, but it couldn't change reality outside the game. Or that was how Franky explained it.

"What's the big idea, you shitty mosshea-"

"Oi, Brook! Brook!" Zoro approached the Elvis-suit wearing stick of a guy, and took out the 'booster pack' with a black and white striped ribbon on it out to dangle it in front of his nose. A bottle of milk was usually effective enough. However, since Brook seemed to be controlled by the CPU, Zoro threw in a pair of panties, too. He didn't want to know whose they were... "Look over here!"

"Ah!" As if he had been a puppet whose strings had been cut, Brook stopped dancing immediately and grabbed the items. "Eh? Zoro-san? What's going on?" he blinked at him.

"Usopp! Where do you need the lag?" Sanji followed Usopp around on the dancefloor to get him to hear him.

"Right there!"

Usopp pointed onto the split display. Brook's side was showing 'Player 1 not detected' and Usopp's directions on the other half were going way too fast now. But in between the two halves was something odd. A pixelation of sorts.

"Brook! Please hurry!" Nami screamed, squirming to defy the call of the music.

"Yosh, right away!"

With practice, Brook reached to his side to pull his disruptor staff out of cyberspace, which, in a flash, revealed a blade. And as soon as its tip was struck inside the pixel gap on the split screen, the whole environment began to distort with all kinds of coloured stripes, and the music filtered through in bits and pieces. Zoro was feeling very dizzy, too. A full-fledged lag.

"Okay now," Usopp finally left his dancing confinement, and reached for his sling. "Stay together!"

Usopp then used his chance to attack. Him being the shooter of the band, he pulled the rubber of his sling tightly, and aimed his best bug at the gap.

With heavy quaking and bits of code scattering everywhere, the dancing game world fell to pieces. Nami was barely at her senses enough to get the exception barrier switch to work with the exit configuration, and Zoro knew Sanji's hands were shaking as he pressed his button, too. When he dared to breathe again, though, Zoro was greeted by comforting green and blue. The cube stretched protectively around them all.

"Phew, that was a close call..." Usopp slowly gathered himself.

"Ugh..." Nami groaned, rubbing her forehead. The after-effects of a game's code-editing treatment could be rough. "We're all here..." She glanced around. "Thank god. We need to find the others, quickly. The battery dropped to ten percent already while we were in there."

"Ten percent? What stupid fuck is using that much?" Sanji grumbled.

"That's a good sign," Nami said, "I think. The others could still be active somewhere..."

"But ten percent... With this old thing, that's barely two minutes!" Usopp shrieked.

"We're doomed!" Brook cried.

"We sure missed you guys..." Sanji rolled his eyes. Then he turned to Zoro. "Oi, Marimo! What do you think you're doing, just standing there?! Get your ass out looking already!"

"If we weren't so short on time, I'd kick you straight out the console."

"Just go, or we're all toast!" Nami warned and ushered Zoro out of the cube.

Luckily, it didn't take long to find the next thread. Relatively. Zoro didn't get why the others were screaming at him to go left wehen he already was going right! Uh, left! One of the lefts...!

The thread was of a reddish colour. Luffy always chose red when it came to board games. Could he…?

Zoro quickly scanned the string for the opening and activated it. The world suddenly turned into awkward, exaggerated shapes, and as they all entered, creepy cartoony music washed over them. No, Luffy didn't play this game that much. It must have been...

"Zoro!"

A shrill cry caught all of their attention - it was coming from something like a flower field from the looks of it. The terrain was covered in holes, nuts, mushrooms and weird plants shooting frozen peas and whatnot. And among them, in the third - the middle - lane, stood a very shivery Chopper in a walnut costume. He was holding up a dented shield of sorts. No, a screen door, it was; he must have gotten it from those zombie dudes that were heading his way. They were slowed down by the ice, yes, but there were too many of them to be kept off by the shots, even if there was a new sprout spitting stuff at them every second or so. And on the sidelines, there stood was Robin. Waving her hands around on the plant cards and collectible sun icons and coins, she was visibly sucked into the battle between her flowers and the undead.

Yeah, zombies again. Typical.

"Don't worry, Chopper, we're coming!"

As Sanji started dashing towards the plant barricade, Zoro noticed that the blond was wearing the same red running clothes as one of those zombie idiots. That led him to look over himself as well. Thankfully, all he had gotten was a traffic cone on his head, aside from some zombie rags. In sharp contrast, Usopp looked like a disco dancer straight from the 80's and Brook had a rubber ducky swimming ring around his waist. Oh, and there was Nami, in a dorky daisy mask. It looked like the game wanted everyone (un)dead but her.

"Wait, Sanji-kun, we don't even-" Nami called after the cook, but much too late. "-know how to get out! Ugh!" She finished, fuming.

"We have to get Chopper-san out of there! These zombies just keep coming! So scary…" Brook put in. He was a real scaredy cat, even though his returning skeleton outfit on Halloween was the scariest thing the neighbourhood brats had ever seen.

"Yeah, but how?" Usopp mused.

"Sanjiii, where are you going?!"

"I don't know! Shit!"

Screaming interrupted their thinking again. Sanji had reached Chopper all right, but with a comical swing of his arms, he slammed his jumping pole down right behind the little one's back, and leapt over him!

"Fuck!" Sanji exclaimed. He had lost his pole with the jump, too. " Urgh, how do I-! I can't turn back!"

What kind of idio- Wait, no. The jumping zombie dude did that jumping-over in the game. Right.

But the one with the cone didn't….!

"Zoro! Zoro, where are you going?!" Nami called after him. "Stop! Not you too!"

There was another wave of zombies closing in fast. Zoro saw that on the weird red chart hovering above their heads, with flags and brains and all. They needed to get Chopper out of there before that happened, and they had to make use of the fact that they only looked like zombies, but weren't as slow as them. If there had been anyone else standing there in his place, Chopper could have gotten them right back onto their feet with his healing chip. But if he himself died in-game…! Even though he was right there, Sanji couldn't reach Chopper even if he wanted to. But Zoro could just make it!

"Zoro-san, stop!"

Brook stilled his arm right as he was about to leap forward and grab Chopper. Nami and Usopp were closing in, too, looking relieved that he stood still.

"What now? We need to hurry!" Zoro protested.

"But Zoro-san," Brook shook his arm in emphasys. "If we touch Chopper-san-! Franky-san said that, on the outside, he would never-!"

"We're lucky Sanji couldn't get to him!" Usopp broke in.

"Shit, that's right, we're all zombies!" Zoro realized. How could he have looked over that detail? He didn't remember ever having to assume the enemy role in any game before, but still…! "But then what? None of us can- Wait," he took a second to look over all of them. "Oi, Nami, you're the only plant of us!"

"If this thing counts as one," Nami pouted, folding aside a petal that was flopping into her face. "In any case," she said, more seriously, "Only I can touch Chopper without hurting him. We have to get me to him somehow!"

"Can't you throw her, Zoro-san?" Brook suggested.

"ARE YOU NUTS?!" Zoro couldn't decide of it was Nami or Sanji that yelled louder.

"No! We can't touch her, either," Usopp reasoned, "or she will die!"

"But we can still push back those bastards," Zoro nodded towards the approaching zombies.

"You can't charge at them. We can't move backwards on the field, not even me," Nami explained. "Though I don't know how I can move at all…" she pondered.

"Then we'll just push them back as they come," Usopp resolved, "but we have to go now! Sanji's being shot at!"

"Don't know, he looks fine to me," Zoro shrugged. Looking at Sanji, forced to munch away on a pea cannon by the game, was way too much fun. He wished he could have taken a picture.

"Zoro, come ON, let's go!"

Nami broke off his fun, but he stepped aside regardless, to let her run forward. She sprinted towards the flower beds, though the pool. Pool was good. The pea spitting things couldn't hit them down there. Usopp and Brook followed, and Zoro joined them in plunging into the water and comprising a living shield, so nothing the zombies threw at them would reach her. Well, being zombies, they didn't even need to breathe, so living shield wasn't exactly right, but...

"And if we grab Chopper-san, how will we end the game? Robin-san is still trapped!" Brook observed. He dared a careful glance towards Robin behind the greenery and lawn mowers, totally immersed in ordering more plants to grow and attack.

"I don't know, but we have to think of- Ouch! Of something!" Usopp rubbed at his head, stepping out of the pool. "We're already in shooting range!"

"I know, I'm thinking!" Nami panted. Walking through water wasn't as easy for her, so she struggled to keep her head up.

Zoro took his gaze off Nami to check their situation again. The zombie wave was already in full charge, the quicker ones about to catch up with them from behind. Shit, the final wave was almost upon them, too…! Damn, this game was so annoying. Zoro didn't feel endangered of being immersed in it.

In front, Chopper was still okay. The door he had been holding onto was gone, leaving him defenseless, but he was still in one piece. And Sanji was just about literally biting himself through the double-headed sunflower he had been tearing apart. And there was only one pea cannon left before he reached the lethal lawn mower… Not good.

However, as the sunflower perished, Zoro thought he heard a disapproving sound… And when he looked further, he saw Robin looking quite displeased about her loss, agitatedly rummaging around in her plant card deck.

"I've got something!" Usopp was catching on, too. "If we beat down all the plants, maybe she would come to her senses!"

"But how? Robin's an expert at this game! There's no way we can beat her!" Nami put in.

"But Chopper could," Zoro muttered.

"What? Chopper-san?" Brook next to him seemed confused. "How?"

"Chopper can heal us, but he can give these bastards a power-up, too," Zoro explained.

"You're right! Franky said so! ... And he kind of already did that once..." Nami remembered, shuddering. That deagon had seriously been hard to finish off after that giant buff. And all they've gotten for it had been a lousy rune-word thing..." Okay. Let's do it!" she spoke up again. "The battery is running critically low, too, we need to make it!"

"Okay you guys, let's get Chopper out of there and bring down the apocalypse on Robin!" Usopp declared. "Uhh, I hope she won't kill us for ruining her plants, though…" He started shivering.

"Don't dare hope for that," Zoro grinned, turning forward again. The he recalled a small detail. "Right. What about the cook? He's about to hit a lawnmower."

"WHAT?!" Nami, Usopp and Brook screeched so loud that Zoro thought he might go deaf.

"Yeah-yeah, I'll go."

"Wait, what are you-!" Usopp proceeded to scream as Zoro stopped in his tracks and letting the others carry on. Was nothing ever enough for these guys?

Really, zombies were just too damn slow. Zoro was getting really sick of waiting for one to get close enough to him; he couldn't go back and grab one himself, after all. Yes, good! One with a newspaper was just perfect. Zoro decided to test his luck with the dead guy - maybe he could knock the newspaper out of the zombie's hands himself...

Fortune seemed to be on their side for once. The zombie got pretty pissed from losing his morning paper, too, and started marching forward with double speed. Finally. Zoro started running again beside him, dodging a pea or a piece of butter now and then, until they got pretty close to Sanji tearing at the last plant in the row, deep in the plant battlements. He looked very battered himself. Just in time…!

"Oi, shitty cook, get away!"

Zoro quickly pulled Sanji off the half-chewed plant, just before the no-newspaper zombie dude reached it and started munching angrily. Okay, so far so good, now wha-

A lawnmower had just gone off right next to them, evoking a loud 'NO!' from Robin in front of them. Yes!

Immediately, both of them rolled onto the now emptied lane. The other lawnmower had barely passed them by, but ran the unlucky newspaper zombie through, along with a dozen others behind him. Being in the furthest lane to the left, they had gotten farther away from Chopper this way, but they already saw Nami and the others approaching, shrieking as the lawnmowers passed them by…

"Namiiii!" Chopper promptly leapt onto her as soon as he could, hugging her neck.

"Chopper! Buff the zombies!" Usopp called to him.

"What? Are you crazy, you disco piece of shit?!" Sanji screamed in confusion. Oh yeah, he didn't hear...

"Just do it!" Zoro shoved the cook aside. There was no time…! "Now!"

"OKAY!"

Chopper cried out suddenly. He leapt up higher in Nami's hold, and hastily pulled several little balls out of nowhere, and proceeded to throw them almost endlessly onto the horde of approaching zombies. When he was all out, the zombies seemed to notice, too. They stopped in their tracks, looking about as insightful as a throng of undead could, before they started gurgling and groaning loudly… And hastened to a trot!

"Aaaaaaah, they're crazy strong now!" Chopper flailed and almost punched Nami in the face. "Why did I do this again?! Whyyy?!"

"What are you all standing around like shits on sticks, let's move it!" Sanji declared, and because nobody was fast enough for his liking, he moved to grab Zoro's and Usopp's arms to try drag them along.

Nami held onto Chopper as she ran forward, towards the lanes on the far end, where the lawnmowers were already used up. Robin had planted more greens there in the wake of the ones she lost, true. Those couldn't hurt their fellow daisy and walnut, though, and the others who pulled the zombie lot made sure the two of them weren't ambushed from behind by super-powered dead dudes. And even if they didn't hurry, the undead would have literally pushed them towards the end of the field. The utterly irritated Robin stood closer and closer to them...

"No, stop eating them! Leave my plants alone!"

Robin's in-game energy reserves were running out. Things were looking good for them…! However, she was not the only one losing power.

"Oh no…!" Nami gasped. Flickering like a ligt bulb, the world around them gained a darker shade. "The battery is almost out!"

"Robin!" Chopper jumped out of Nami's hold and hurried to the entranced Robin's side. "Robin, wake up! We have to go! Wake up!" He jumped up and up to block her sight.

"Crap, they're still coming!" Zoro observed, trying his best to hold back the nearest zombies.

"Nami and Chopper are still plants to them!" Brook screeched. "They won't rest until they've eaten them aliiive!"

"Robin-chwan, snap out of it!" Sanji pleaded.

"Robin!" Nami reached her, too, shaking her by the shoulders. "Robin, please!"

Nami gave so much effort that the daisy mask almost fell off her head - if that was even possible in the game. But as its petals flopped around her head, back and forth and everywhere, Robin seemed to start seeing her, ever so slowly…

"Nami…? What are you-?" Robin blinked. "What on earth is-"

"We've got no time to explain! How do we get out of here?!"

Zoro frantically whipped his head here and there, trying to look for a possible way out…!

"There has to be something, anything…!"

"I don't- I couldn't see-!"

...but among the threatening zombies...

"Aaaaah, we're gonna diiie!"

"Stop that and help us look, dammit…!"

...and his frightened friends, there was just no…!

"W-what about the house?! Let's check the house!"

Usopp wheezed his words by then, and he quickly ushered Nami towards the door of a house. The house the game was designed to protect. Sanji ran in after, herding Chopper in front of him and helping up a stumbling Brook, and Zoro, giving the foe at his back one more shove, was just about to dash after them…!

And right then, everything went dark.

 **XxX**

"Sabo…? Sabo, it's you, isn't it?"

"Ah, Ace, good morning!" Sabo smiled sheepishly as his elder brother, who was sitting up in bed. "Sorry, didn't mean to wake you… Oh, hey, careful, your…!"

"Hey-hey, I'm fine. I'm used to it by now," Ace breathed deeply to chase the sting away, his hand resting on his bandage over his chest. Skin transplants were no strangers to him anymore. "You're up early. You could have brought me breakfast, at least," he chucked, then winced as Sabo flicked the lights on.

"Oh, you know Dadan would flood your room with food if she could," Sabo laughed, "but you know the rules. You'll have to make due with hospital food for now."

"Hey, stop it with the curse words, you potty mouth," Ace snorted, and rubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand. "Hey, is that…?" He squinted at the object in his brother's hand.

"Yeah," Sabo smiled down on the game console. "This old thing eats more than you two combined," he sighed, stuck the end of the loading cable into the small device, then placed it back onto the pristine white nightstand between the two hospital beds, in front of the ever-beeping respirator.

"Why do you keep...? I mean, it's not like he can… Nobody even touched that thing since Franky once asked to look at it and stuff..."

"I know, I know," Sabo gave another little laugh, but not a happy one. "Call me stupid, but… I think he's hanging in better when it's charged and ready for him…"

"He loves that damn console so much…" Ace sighed. "First one he ever got, shaped like the, um… That ship from his fave game! The uh..."

"The Going Merry!" Sabo rolled his eyes at him. "He kept going on and on about it! How can you even forget that?"

"Haha, that's right! The 'Merrryyy'! I chased him with a pipe once so he'd shut up about it," Ace shook his head, smiling. "And now he won't even-" He clasped his own mouth shut. His little brother... It's been almost two years...! Swallowing quickly, he oppressed his thoughts with more words. "Man, if he… when he comes back… We'll get him that cool one! You know, with the lion and stuff. Thousand Sunny or whatsit?"

"Yeah… We so will!" Sabo agreed, and forced himself to smile.

Two years since the accident, and Luffy... He was still in so much pain that they couldn't let him-! He couldn't-!

Sabo blinked back his tears. The doctors had all said he was gone. Gone somewhere deep, gone for good. But that was a load of crap! They _would_ find a surgeon to make him better; to get his heart to pump on its own again. They would be there for him, however much of him was left after waking up. All his friends would come back to visit him soon, too, Sabo was sure of it!

After all, Luffy had protected them! From the crumbling stones, hot as lava! From the fire...!

Reconsidering, Sabo took the game console off the nightstand, and instead, placed it onto the other bed. He wrapped a bandaged hand loosely around it. It was still warm. Still alive. He squeezing gently. Ace took a shaky breath behind his back...

"Just come back to us already. Luffy…"

 **XxX**

Another grenade exploded, louder this time. More shots rang through the field somewhere above, but he couldn't judge where they were coming from anymore. Before, stern commands had been barked, in the shadows and on open field, and soldiers' salutes had answered loudly, but those voices were all gone. It seemed all a very long time ago.

It was dark down there, in the bunker. Dark, and dead silent. Only some kind of red thread shed a little light in the pit, so he kept it close, held onto it; he almost felt it being tugged now and then.

He had wasted his bullets early on in the war, so he had to rely on the hardness of the steel rifle in a melee blow instead. That, and his comrades. His nakama. It was all thanks to them he had come as far as he had. Survived as long as he had.

And all for what? _He had lost them all._

His chest was in so much pain that he could barely breathe. He had taken the blow. He had taken some of it, but not enough, and because of that... They had all…!

He was down to medkits by then. One was miraculously reappearing in a corner, for a reason he had forgotten about, but there was nobody coming and going down there aside from him.

But Luffy wasn't going anywhere, either. Not anymore.

 **XxX**

"What is this place…? Oof-"

Zoro stretched out a hand to make Nami and Usopp behind him stop walking. Some kind of soldier, dressed in yellow camouflage, trotted past the pile of barrels they were hiding behind - it was a good thing they didn't enter the game on plain field. When Sanji crawled to the nearest wall, and gave them a signal, Zoro waved for them to proceed.

"I never liked this game… So violent!" Brook squeaked.

"Sssh, we're in a war zone here…!" Sanji spat a strained whisper. "Concentrate on staying low with that giant hair of yours..!" He motioned for Brook to duck even lower.

"You two, be careful…!" Nami warned the two in front. "If you get stuck in this game, too, we're done for...!"

"Don't worry, we've got it under control…!" Usopp assured. Then he snuck up to Sanji and made a terrible tongue-waggling, eye-rolling grimace at him.

"This is the worst idea," Sanji snorted.

"Guess it's working, though," Zoro put in, in the middle of tousling Chopper's hair under his helmet, who 'fought back' with a couple of his own silly faces.

"Whatever," Nami sighed. "Just keep it together…! Our anti-off switch got us out of the last game, but it's busted now..." Thank goodness that thing had an energency automation. It would have been less scary if Franky had mentioned it before...

"What...? Wasn't that supposed to be the only thing that could get us back out...?!" Usopp screamed silently. "What do we do now...?!"

"Sssh, can it, you bag of dickwhistles...!"

Sanji was forced to clamp Usopp's mouth shut as they continued. Those two chattering soldiers looked too bored not to hear his ungodly, however muted, screeching.

"As I was saying..." Nami continued at a safe diatance. "Franky has left us a message. He has integrated himself into the game, too, now, and he said he could get us out of here. But we have to find him before the battery runs out again...!"

"Good," Zoro acknowledged. "Where is he...?"

"He said he couldn't program an exact location. There was no time..."

"Whaaat...?!" Chopper croaked, trying to hold his own mouth shut.

"Then how do we find him here- Ow," Brook crawled on all fours to get through the narrow arcades, to spare his head. "This map is vast. He could be anywhere…!"

"Leave it to me."

Finally, it was Robin's turn to make use of her special enhancement. With a touch to the chip at her neck with both her hands, the terrain suddenly became much more crowded.

Robin herself closed her eyes and left herself blind, but her clones were everywhere. They were perfectly concealed from enemy eyes, using hidden gateways and gaps in the chipset that made the ground and the buildings. Zoro was glad that she was finally with them again. Her skills were amazing. Franky had cautioned them, though, that as a price, she was more vulnerable to viruses. She had admitted to them that one of those nasty things had coerced her into the previous zombie-contra-plant game. It had promised to save all but her if she complied... She had felt she hadn't had a choice.

However, after their near-miss escape thanks to Franky's emergency hack, Robin had said she wanted to live. For Luffy's sake.

"Do you see anything…?" Chopper peered up at her.

"I cannot see Luffy… yet..." Robin wrinkled her brows, concentrating. "But I think… Yes…! I found Franky…! It's him...! And there seems to be someone with him… I am not sure who..."

"We'll find out when we get there," Sanji concluded. "Come on, I figured out the move pattern of those sand-assed patrol guard shits. We gotta go, now…!"

They were progressing as the opportunities came. Sanji went scouting in front with Usopp watching out for him, after them snuck Nami and Brook, helping Robin walk, and Chopper stayed behind to look out for Zoro in the back. At times, they had had to wait for enemies to be unattentive enough to be avoided or knocked out. At others, Robin had found shortcuts to follow on the way. They had been ambushed once, too, when some soldiers had lured them into an alley. Chopper and Usopp had to be on guard, not to lose Zoro and Sanji in the fight - Zoro had gone as far as to grab a rifle. Imagine that.

But after a good while, they happened upon a large, dingy building that in no way fit into the desert war zone scenery. Its sign advertised, 'Franky House'.

"Oh, wait. I think he's in there," Usopp pointed at the building, very stern and unbemused.

"Are you imitating the shitty Marimo head again?" Sanji snickered.

"Shut up and move your scrawny ass, stupid cook," Zoro grunted. He pinched Chopper's cheek for imitating him, too, before he herded the others forward.

"YO, what took you so long?! I thought I made the dealio plain enough!"

Franky lamented as greeting as they entered 'his' house. It wasn't as dingy on the inside as it was from an outer view. To be precise, all that was in there were running green and blue numbers, like in their shield in the between-game void. Zoro squinted at the neon letters. After all that dust and sand outside, it took some getting used to.

"Weird to see ya all without your helmets and hospital aprons!" Franky added. "But it's still good to see ya look more alive!"

Well, being strapped onto beds with holo-helmets and all couldn't have been a nice sight to see for... however long they all had been in the console. But still a better one than Luffy's had been the last they had seen him...

He had said the fire had been his fault - the gang of thugs had always had a bone to pick with the D family, he had insisted. Ace had saved him from the first burning wooden beam. But when with joined effort they had finally reached the cellar, Luffy had barely had enough time to slam its iron door closed. And not enough time to get inside, too...!

Just thinking back had Zoro's hand make a fist. _Luffy, you bastard..._

Of course, their techie friend hadn't failed to program himself into an ultra super cyborg as he had entered the game world. But there was someone more plain-looking next to him. As plain as a leopard-spotted hat and a yellow sweater counted, that is. His skin seemed to have fain blotches of darker tone all over, too...

"Who the shit are you?" Sanji demanded right away.

"He's Dr. Trafalgar Law, and he's a surgeon!" Franky boasted. "Told ya I'd find one, didn't I? Now who's SUPER? What a question, I'M super! Hahaa!" He struck a wacky pose.

"I'm Law. Hi… I guess," the unfamiliar face put in, looking over them all with wary eyes. Really? After Franky, they were weird to him?

"But Franky-san, we need the surgeon outside of the game, not in here," Brook pointed out.

"Yeah, dumbass," Sanji added.

"Yeah, dumbass!" echoed Chopper.

"HA! He's as alive outside as you an' me! He's just a weirdo-"

"Hey, you!"

"-and wanted to see his patient first! Like, he's seen his body, but he was bent on seein' if he was actually in here. So I brought the nutcase!"

"Look who's talking," Law grumbled. "Anyway. Where is he? Haven't seen hi-"

"Please," Robin said, "be quiet for a second, I am almost…! I have found something… interesting."

"And by that you mean batshit insanely scary, right?!" Usopp squeaked.

"Noooo…!" Chopper flopped against Zoro's leg. "Not zombies again…!"

"Ssssh!" Nami waved them off. "Robin, what do you see?"

"Underground… There is a passage…! If only I could find out where the entrance lies…!"

"Underground?! No prob!"

Franky hooted, and in a second, his arms transformed into two huge drills. And just like that, he ran out of the house. Not only did he drill down his own door, but he also swiftly thrust them into the sand and the earth below, digging deeper and deeper, singing some crazy song involving a lot of 'OW'-s and 'Franky'-s.

Nami and Robin sighed together with Law. Zoro just shrugged like the rest. But when a fair enough tunnel started to form, they all made haste to follow him down under.

"The thread!" Zoro cried out at one point inside the improvised tunnel. How did that get inside the game…? In any case, he quickly grabbed the red yarn thread, determined not to let it go. "I found his thread!"

"That has to be Luffy's!" Nami confirmed. "Is there an access link?"

"No," Zoro examined it, "none I can see… Oi, Franky! Franky!" he tried to yell through the drilling noises a bit onward. "Oi!"

"Ah? What's goin' on?" Franky dashed back to them.

"This," Zoro held up the tread. "There's not access link. What do we do with it?"

"Oh?" Franky scratched his head, thought for a bit, then grinned wide. "Oooh, super simple! We follow it!"

"Follo-" Usopp mused, but as he tugged on the thread, some of it came loose from the dirt. "Oh! We're in a maze, but without actual routes!"

"Fantastic..."

The surgeon mumbled something before he trod along behind Franky. Zoro rushed to progress in front, too, holding the thread tightly and watching for its turns.

Another explosion. Was there even anyone left to fight? Had the ones who had wounded his friends fallen, too?

Luffy looked down onto his torso. It was gauzed this time, again. Sometimes he only saw blood dripping along his bare chest; not only his blood. There were sometimes weird tubes on him, too, but when he blinked, he only saw the red thread in his hold. His hand felt really hard to get to move now…

There was more rumbling. It came from lower this time. Much lower. Almost as deep down as…

No… They found him… They were coming for him…!

With a tremendous boom, the wall on his left came down, and he could only so much as crawl to the other end of the pit. They were here for him at last. They were going to…!

"OW! There he is!"

"Luffy! Oi, Luffy!"

 _They were-_

"Luffy, you shitty bastard, hey!"

"Luffy! Thank goodness you didn't blow up with the wall!"

"Luffy! Luffy, it's us! Us! We have eight thousand men to rescue you!"

 _They were gonna…!_

"Luffy! Get yourself together! We're- Hey, where did the surgeon go-?"

"Luffy-san, thank gooood!"

 _They were…?_

"Luffy! Are you hurt?! I'm here now!"

 _They were supposed to be dead, right…?_

Luffy finally dared to uncurl from his crouch. Slowly opened his eyes to the dust, the dark, and several faces around him. He barely heard what they were saying because of the explosion still piping in his ears. But there was one of them, whispering softly... A white figure…

"Luffy… I wanted to go on further, have more adventures with you. But if you'll keep me in your memory, I'm happy. I'm sorry, and thank you. Live on for me…!"

And suddenly, the gentle white figure was gone, replaced with a hard metal box - someone's chest, with nipples - right in front of Luffy's nose. Suddenly, it morphed into a door. The cellar... Luffy knew it wouldn't open. He couldn't let it...!

It was hard, it was too close, it was locked. And it was ticking. Beeping. Faster. Faster...

 _"No..! NO!"_

Someone started yelling just then. In the distance, and yet so close...

"-nky! Franky! He's getting unstable! His pulse-!" That voice... Was that...? "Do it now!"

Obeying the command, the cellar door, the metallic chest, slammed open with a boom. It revealed a TV screen, displaying a distorted picture of two faces. No, not two… There were three of them…!

 **XxX**

"Luffy…? Luffy, can you hear me…?! Luffy!"

"Ah, good, he's waking up. He responds well to the after-surgery treatment."

"Luffy! Ow...!"

"No, Ace, you stay right there!"

"Ace…? S-Sabo…?" There were gasps all around him, and blurry faces. But he knew them before he could even see them. "Ace… Sabo… And Traffy, you too…?"

"I told you a hundred times not to call me-"

"LUFFY!"

There was a loud slam, but one Luffy welcomed. Thankfully, the hospital bed was made out of sturdy iron and plastic. For it sure wasn't designed to accommodate the eight surplus of people wearing surgical gowns, flooding into the hospital room and leaping on top of it to join Luffy.

"Hey, what are you doing, you're squishing him!" Sabo panicked.

"Hey, go easy, he just woke up…!" Ace couldn't help but laugh.

"Honestly," Dr. Trafalgar gave a sigh, "these guys…"

Everyone in the hospital room was on the verge of tears when Luffy let out a rattling, but happy laugh. Well, no, after Franky started crying, everyone was bawling like a pile of babies.

It was his first laugh after two years, after all…

"Everyone…! _I'm back!"_


End file.
